


Mar Amon, Summer

by skripka



Category: Belgariad/Malloreon Series - David & Leigh Eddings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-12-19
Updated: 2007-12-19
Packaged: 2018-01-25 09:14:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1643411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skripka/pseuds/skripka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are Great loves and small ones; sometimes a small one is what heals you.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mar Amon, Summer

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to ryuutchi for the last minute beta, and to everyone who put up with my whinging.
> 
> Written for Casper

 

 

There are many types of love.

When you write of "love," most people tend to think of the great romances, the Loves that endure and echo through the ages. That type of love is rare, and often difficult to bear. When you're connected so closely, any small difference of opinion tends to get magnified. Patience is the best quality to have in those situations.

The Necessity that guided us, luckily, tended to make such great romance easy. Of course there were moments, and Aldur knows I've tried to forget those. In the end, however, all the pain and anguish was worth it. I have my Poledra now, and we live as comfortably together as we ever could.

I digress, though. Call it a privilege of old age. There are the Great Loves, indeed, but one cannot live thousands of years--mostly alone, at that--and not fall in with the smaller loves.

I'm hardly talking about sex, although there was plenty of that. Not as much as one would expect--studying has always tended to occupy my mind thoroughly--but off and on, during the days after Poledra's "death."

Despite all the legends, I am, at heart, a man.

After the twins were born, I left the Vale. I don't remember any destination in particular, not even death, but then, I wasn't entirely sane. I'm sure there were moments that I wished for death in the dregs of my grief. I was lucky, though. I was pulled from that despair by the pull of necessity and of Aldur. One small advantage of being a disciple, although at that time I was less than gracious about it.

Nevertheless, I pulled myself from Camaar and continued wandering through the Kingdoms of the West and eventually ended up in the center of Maragor.

I'd always liked the Marags, despite the alien-ness of their culture. They were, at heart, good and generous people. Even the cannibalism didn't bother me, mostly because I had ways to avoid it.

Anyway, Mar Amon was a beautiful city, despite its peculiarities. The street was clean and wide, lined with shady fruit trees. Yes, I said "street;" Mar Amon was laid out in a spiral, with only a few connector streets between some of the major plazas, mostly along the outer rim of the city. Another oddity was the lack of restaurants, bars and inns--if you weren't near your own residence when you got hungry, thirsty, or sleepy, the rules of hospitality meant that you often had to choose between several offers of comfort.

As I mentioned before, I appreciated the Marags for who they were.

It didn't take me too long before I found myself in an arrangement. There was marriage, of a sort, in Maragor, but it was contracted for a certain number of years and generally designed for procreation. Even women have their needs, however, and the custom of taking lovers for extended periods had developed.

Not all of the needs were physical. I might have mentioned the extreme physicality of the Marag men before, and their propensity towards developing their strength more than their intellect. While they were often useful in their ways, I had a brain and I knew how to use it.

I had been shuffled among a few houses of well-to-do families in Mar Amon. Even with a barter economy, it's possible to become better-off than others. The last woman--Jia, if I recall correctly--ended up letting me go, because she was about to get married to some young thing from another powerful family. It left me at loose ends, to be honest, so I found myself wandering the city more often than not.

I remember the day clearly; the sun was beating down, and I was exploring some of the outer sections of the city, and ended up at one of the connecting avenues.

This street was narrower than most in Mar Amon. The houses were pressed up tight against each other, small paved courtyards flush to the street. Some had heavy lintels of wood, others pergolas; there was no pattern I could perceive, but there was an odd sort of rhythm. Many women and a few men were working outside, unwilling to waste a sunny day.

She was there, bare-breasted and washing linen in a tub in her courtyard. Her hair was bronze-dark with flashes of copper, curled tight against her tanned skin. The length of it was held back with a red scarf, and her skirt was rucked up over her knees.

In Tol Honeth this would have been a scandal; in Mar Amon, it was a common enough sight. Tol Honeth had arguably worse summers, but in Mar Amon, there was some acceptance of the (and perfectly reasonable, in my opinion) need for occasional nudity. Not that I participated, mind you. I was old enough at that point to prefer the occasional glance or ogle.

I'll admit to ogling her. I had stopped completely, and couldn't stop staring. It wasn't that she was stunningly beautiful, although what I saw of her was lovely enough, but I was struck more by her demeanor than anything else.

It took only a moment before she noticed me staring. Her damp hand brushed an errant curl from her temple and her dark eyes narrowed. "Do you need something, Ancient One?"

Well. I had been in Mar Amon for some time. It was obviously enough to make an impression. Besides, not many men in Maragor went around dressed like I did.

Fortune favors the bold, so I answered easily. "Admiring the view, Mistress." It was a honest enough compliment.

She flushed a pretty shade of pink, but her demeanor didn't change. "I'm hardly old enough for that title, Ancient One."

I was definitely going to have to put a stop to _that_. I crossed the street and gave her a broad smile in return. A bit of Arendish wordplay could be fun, but I refused to let it get too convoluted. "Consider it a compliment, Lady, and a fair return on the title you gave me."

At that, she looked mildly abashed. This close, I could see that her eyes were dark, with flecks of a grey-green scattered throughout, and her eyelashes neatly swept her cheek every time she blinked. "I did not intend anything by it, An..." She made an adorable squeak and covered her mouth with a hand.

I laughed out loud. "Call me Belgarath, please." I extended my hand to help her to her feet. "And you?"

She wasn't extraordinarily graceful, but she stood easily, still blushing (and I couldn't help but notice that it spread down her neck and chest). "Diera," was her answer.

"Diera. That's a lovely name. Well, now that we've been introduced, Diera, I don't suppose you know where a thirsty man could have a drink?"

And that's how it started.

***

The inside of Diera's house was shady and cool behind thick stone. A loom took up most of the entry floor. Her hearth had a small table and two chairs, which were all covered in brightly-patterned cloths. The design was similar enough to the one sketched on the weft.

"Are you a weaver, then, Diera?" I did like the way her name felt on my tongue.

Now dressed in a red embroidered tunic, Diera pulled an earthenware jug from a nearby shelf. "I am." She set the jug beside two mugs already in place before unstopping it and pouring a healthy measure of the light fruit juice that was popular in Mar Amon at that time.

No, it wasn't fermented. I'd had enough of that in Camaar.

The juice, however, was refreshing, and the dim light of the interior was relaxing after the height of the day's sun.

Diera and I talked about trivialities and learned to enjoy each others' company at first, and after a brief lunch of soft cheese and salty fruits, I helped her finish her laundry. It was only fair; I had interrupted her work, after all.

I had mentioned the hospitality before. Diera had no intention of letting me find someplace else to sleep after our talk, but I was gentleman enough to go out and procure food for our dinner, and I prepared dinner while she spent the fading light weaving some more of her fabric.

That first night, I slept downstairs while she took her loft. Not that I wasn't tempted, and I like to think that she was, too, but there were certain proprieties to be followed.

We made up for it on the second night, and part of the third day.

All in all, I must have spent almost seven months with Diera, in an approximation of conjugal bliss. She wove and I studied her, along with the rest of this subsection of Marag culture. I also did a lot of the work around her house, and some manual labor to provide food for the both of us. I might have cheated a bit on that last, but nobody complained.

I was happy, even blissful at times. I like to think that my time with Diera healed my heart. All the beer in Camaar certainly didn't, and neither did dealing with idiots in Arendia or Tolnedra. There was a certain timelessness that hung over Mar Amon that allowed people to just exist, and I needed that

I should have known that the timelessness was an illusion and couldn't last. I'd seen and studied that again and again through my life. Here's the thing I discovered. Diera was a wonderful companion, and what I felt for her was real, but a small love doesn't follow the same rules as a Great Love. When all was said and done, she cared for me, just not as intensely as I did for her.

It did hurt my heart, too, but not to the extent Poledra's departure had. Just enough to realize that I was still a whole man, and capable of surviving anything, even grief.

Considering how everything turned out in the end, it was probably for the best. It was only a short time later that Beldin arrived in Mar Amon to beat me about the head and drag me back to the bigger world.

 


End file.
